


Forgetting is Easier

by Ingoma



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Based on author's personal trauma, Being told 'You are nothing' repeatedly., Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Trying to forget your past, Vex Magic, alcohol mention, little to no editing, so if that's a trigger for you don't read., which mainly had to do with religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:07:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26334610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingoma/pseuds/Ingoma
Summary: Cubfan reflects on his past.He doesn't want to.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40





	Forgetting is Easier

Hermitcraft was dangerous, but death was walked off like nothing. Hermitcraft was terrifying, but they laughed through the pain. Hermitcraft was broken, but the Hermits found healing. That was what they always needed, in the end, those who stumbled upon Hermitcraft. A way to heal from the hell that had been there life before.

The same was true of the former Kingdomcrafters. Iskall, Ren, Scar, Wels, and Cub all had come from different backgrounds to make something whole. Now they did that on Hermitcraft. Chaos and laughter, and healing. It was all about healing the scars of a past best left forgotten.

So why, Cub wondered, feeling oddly philosophical, why did he feel so broken?

Maybe it was his inner Joe Hills, but he could compare this feeling to hollowness. A deep void he felt as he wandered aimlessly through the minigames of his pyramid. Through everything he had built with his own hands.

Cub sighed. He didn't know what was wrong. Maybe nothing was wrong, maybe his head was just making silly things up for him to pretend he knew what he was doing. He couldn't know. He was simply Cubfan. A pharaoh. A former ConVex. And therein lay the problem, actually. A former ConVex.

It was a lie. Cub knew. He could never truly be a former ConVex. No, Vex were forever. They stole you from everything you had. Cub didn't remember his original homes. All he could remember were the Vex. Maybe they were all that had ever mattered in his life. The memories that haunted his dreams of Vex tearing him apart as they laughed, waiting for the moment that Cub slipped up and they could punish him, bring joy to themselves. It haunted Cub. It always had. 

He never got real help for it. How could he. He had dealt with it. He had, he assured a nonexistent other person. Scar had other people to help, he had his own problems but Cub didn't need that. Cub was on his own. That was all Cub needed was himself. Cub didn't need anyone.

No, Cub was fine. He could tell himself that all the time. He told himself it as he sorted through chests, looking for more redstone that he knew he didn't have, yet didn't feel like going out while he felt so vulnerable. No one could see Cub's vulnerability. Cub was strong, he was tough, he was brave. He didn't need anyone. Maybe he did. No, no he didn't. He told himself that again. 

So, Cub went around for a pickaxe, and some food. He would mine for the redstone, away from everyone. He would keep his problems underground like he didn with so many things. IT didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Cub was nothing, and The Vex were everything.

Cub was nothing and the Vex were everything.

That's something Cub heard everyday when the Vex had first captured him. That Cub was awful, terrible, that all Cub was was filth that was lucky to so much be the Vex's garbage. Was it true? Cub assumed so. He never remembered anything before the Vex. Therefore, it had to have been the truth.

Even with the Kingdomcraft, with Hermitcraft, Cub never had a reason to feel differently. He was surrounded by amazing builders, powerful admins, criminals, people who were refugees, all manner of creatures that just wanted to live and be free.

Cub was never free. He never had that option. Not that it mattered. Cub didn't matter.

Cub was nothing, and the Vex were everything.

Cub went down to his mines. It stretched for miles over the Hermitcraft land, seeking out gold, diamonds, and other precious materials that Cub could use for resources on the Hermitcraft server. That's more that he needed. Maybe he would strike diamonds as he headed into his mine. The mine was undecorated compared to the fake feeling opulence of the rest of his build There was no reason to spruce up something no one would see.

Cubfan found a new place in his mine and began to dig, breaking apart the rocks, placing torches as he traveled deeper and deeper into a cavern of his own devising. He checked each block carefully, pocketing even something as small as iron. No redstone appeared.

Cub found a pocket of gold. It was beautiful gold, all shiny and new and untouched by the heat of a furnace. Cub pocketed that too. Did Cub need more riches than he already had? No, but that was okay. Anything to distract himself from the terror that was his own thoughts.

Cub was his own best friend and worst enemy. He could encourage himself through his positive outlook, knowing by now that after years of not knowing whether the Vex would dispose of him in a permadeath, that nothing the Hermits could face could be worse. Cub, for the first time, had some measure of control. He had had it for years, but the idea of acknowledging that wasn't conceivable to Cub. Maybe it should have been, Cub didn't know. ccccccub didn't know much. That didn't matter. Nothing really mattered in the end, did it. 

He tore himself away from that thought by focusing on the precious red dust that he had found. It glistened as he rubbed his finger on it, the reddish-copper color that powered builds and machines beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Redstone. Cub loved redstone in an odd way. It had never gone well with Vex magic. Indeed, the ConVex tended to avoid redstone builds when they tried to prank others with Vex magic. 

(He ignored the ConVex. It was different than his relationship before. It was always different. The abuse he and Scar had felt to the hands of Hermitcraft's Vex masters had been so much less awful then what they had suffered through at other hands. Therefore, it was fine.)

(He supposed Joe, if Cub ever spilled rre then what he had over a night of wine, would say that Cub was suffering from that stockholm syndrome thing. Cub didn't agree.)

Redstone. Right. Cub needed redstone. Now he had redstone. Therefore, now Cub needed to do what he had wanted to do with the redstone...

What did he want to do with the redstone? Did he really forget that quickly? It made no sense. Cub sighed. He hated when his past bit him, when he strayed into thoughts. In previous worlds, the Vex magic had always shut down the thoughts, thanks to them being too rebellious, or something. They vanished as quick as they came, courtesy of the Vex. Usually it made Cub uncomfortable, but by now, it was like he was addicted to it. It was a way for Cub to survive, he supposed. Pretend everything was fine and forget the bad parts of life. He assumed that's what any sensible Vex do. They allowed the happiness with the Vex, the pain from punishments, and any missions that needed to be remembered. That was it.

There wasn't much of a reason to let Cub keep anything else. His memories were worth even less than him as a whole. It was good. Cub was nothing, and that was good, because the Vex loved him. They must have loved him for not throwing him away.

Scar. Scar experienced this. He didn't know everything that had happened to Scat, but... it had been worse.

Scar, ripped from his home world, a single player world that had featured Scar just building, just to be taken into the hands of inexperienced Vex. When they couldn't contain Scar, they sold him to the highest bidder, like the slave he was, and said highest bidder finally attempted to fix the breakdown.

A damaged ConVex wasn't much good, after all. Experienced breakers cared and knew about what buttons to push, and what not to push. Scar managed to get in the hands of ones who let him lose the wrong things, and keep the right things..

Maybe that was why Scar had remembered so much of everything. The first Vex made a nonsolid foundation for the new Vex masters to properly build on. They couldn't do anything with Scar. Scar was too late, he was free before he even escaped.

How did Cub and Scar escape? They never didn. At least, Cub never did. All the money he collected, all the power he amassed?

That was the Vex. Cub was a vessel to the Vex. Xisuma had discovered this in Season 6, however.

Xisma had severed the connection. At least, tried to. No Vex in season 7, they promised. Well, no, they didn't. They had promised no ConCorp. The Vex could still return.

Until then Cub needed a substitute some way he could forget. Some source of Vex magic. Vex magic was in everything, but it was in certain things more than others. One such thing was diamonds.

There was the diamond throne at town hall. It had a little hollowed out space inside, Cub had heard. Scar and Cub might not be neighbors this season, but they still kept in close contact. The two had a Vex bond, and a bond with the Vex could never be broken.

Good or bad, it couldn't. Scars or no Scars, it couldn't.

If you broke a Vex pact, bad things happened.

Cub really needed that diamond throne. Lose his memory of this, keep his mind on what the Vex wanted to mold him to be, not what Cub wanted to be. Cub was nothing and the Vex were everything. Cub walked out of his stripmine, the journey long and slow. He closed his eyes, guiding himself by magic and feel. He just wanted to forget. Forget everything forget nothing? Cub wanted to do as the Vexs aid, and the Vex had told him to forget long ago. 

Then, soon, he didn't keep track of wind, Cub could see the end of the mine and he cried. That was all he could do, slightly. wipe the tears and sweat off his brown, throw the collected resources into a chest, climb up the ladder and leave. Leave and go to the shopping district. He was out of rockets, therefore, he needed to leave and get rockets first. Or did he need an elytra?

Cub's mind felt overwhelmed. It was too much, everything was too much. The Vex, the monroes, the pain. He just wanted it to stop. He needed the throne. He needed to soak up the magic and let it mess with his head. Cub had never had a thought of his own, really. The first thing he remembered was the Vex implanting thoughts and memories into him. It was so his brain didn't collapse. That could happen. Cub didn't know how, where a player had nothing to live for and gave up.

Things could be so weird sometimes. Cub found rockets, just a few, he needed to get more, but still it was enough. He jumped, and pulled the string, letting artificial wings lift him up into the sky. Cub didn't know when he had or lost his Vex wings. He supposed it was when the Vex that broke him sold him to a Vex that valued things besides physical wings. That owner valued complete obedience.

There were many hiveminds of Vex in the world. A group was called a mansion, and they all loved diamonds, and having fun. Part of having fun could be using a ConVex. Cub supposed they were quite useful beyond a status symbol He had experienced a wide variety of Vex mansion hosting him. There was one where he couldn't be let alone, where his mind was always in the back for an exciting match where Cub was forced to fight players for diamonds. The players never knew he was secretly a Vex as he killed them again and again, before the diamonds ran dry and they begged for mercy...

It wasn't something you advertise after all. Being a Vex meant being cast out by most societal folks. Thankfully to Cub, the hermits weren't most people.

Cub could see the mushroom islands of the shopping district. He aimed for town hall, the land on the 'runway' of diamonds trees and beautiful carved paths. It spelled wealth in a way only a ConVex could. That was one use many Vex loved, reorganizing treasure in ways the hivemind found unique. Scar knew how to display things proudly, his wealth. 

Scar was so good at being a ConVex, ever despite his unusual upbringing. Scar naturally wanted to serve, and that was easy for the Vex to corrupt. Cub once heard he'd been very difficult. He didn't know how. The Vex must've wiped most memories of that time away. Forgetting an event was an easy way to stop doing it, or to see whether it was a mistake or an instinct.

The Vex didn't want things to become bad habits, after all. Only complete loyalty was rewarded. 

Cub was there. The diamond throne betokened, it's magic call breathing life into Cub. hHe took a step forward basking in its glow. hHundreds upon thousands of diamonds, compressed into blocks by the magic of a crafting table, carved into a glorious throne of pure diamonds . It was walth on a scale unprecedented.

Except by the Vex. Most hermits weren't Vex.

Cub looked around the throne, admiring it from all sides. He could feel the magic emanating from it, like he always could, every time he visited, it was that magic. Cub didn't want to control the diamonds and he wouldn't be surprised if Cub didn't want to either. It was about the magic. That was the important thing few to no hermits could actually think about. The magic that emanated, and slowly fogged up Cub's mind.

It was like it was speaking to him, promising Cub good things if he would just let it in. 

Cub obeyed. That's what he had been trained to do. Drilled out of his mind that the Vex were everything, why would he dare refuse an order from one?

He couldn't. not as the Vex magic seeded into his mind, draining Cub of strength. More and more Cub fell, succumbing to this.

It was a feeling of emptiness turning into an empty joy. Magic drained and magic replaced. Happiness and sadness both equally taken from Cub.

The Vex knew what Cub wanted, and they happily obliged.

Cub heard the call of Xiusma as he stumbled upon Cub lying there, his mind forgetting everything he wanted to forget.

"Oh Cub," the man's soft voice whispered. Why was Cub lying there? He didn't remember.

It wasn't as comforting as Cub always thought.

"You don't need to forget Cub. You don't belong to them anymore."

What was Xisuma talking about?

It was probably nothing. Cub was nothing.

And he loved that.


End file.
